UAE/TURKISH BUSINESS RELATIONS
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Dr. Nilgün Birgören Premium Member Group moderatorThe company name is only visible to registered members.Cities use wealth to shoot for the 'stars' !!
Hello dear friends:-)
The United Arab Emirates may be most famous for its grandiose towers, artificial islands and shopping malls, but its film festivals are equally ambitious.
The Dubai International Film Festival was launched in 2004, but last year drew more than 47,000 viewers to over 180 films. Blockbuster starlets, Bollywood heroes and Arabic filmmakers all mixed to help promote Dubai as a budding film industry centre in the Gulf.
Not to be outdone, Abu Dhabi first bankrolled its own Middle East International Film Festival in 2007. It lasted for five days but attendances were limp and some critics panned the organisation.
Undeterred, the city increased its funding the following year and doubled the length of the festival to 10 days, airing everything from Hollywood blockbusters such as Body of Lies to a documentary about Youssou N’Dour, the Senegalese musician and singer.
International stars and films were attracted by the Black Pearl awards, where Abu Dhabi disbursed $1m to directors, actors and films. The hefty prizes ensured the presence of western independent films that would normally shun an aspiring film festival in the Gulf, adding some cultural credibility to the glitzy event.
“We’re aiming to be up there with Cannes, Berlin, Toronto and Venice,” says Nashwa Al Ruwaini, the festival’s director. “We wouldn’t go for anything less, even if it takes 60 years. “We’re trying to create a cinema culture,” she adds. “It won’t happen this year or next, but we have to start somewhere.”
Abu Dhabi is also using its wealth to make a splash in the international film industry. In September, it announced it would invest $1bn in films produced in Hollywood, Bollywood and beyond, through a film company called Imagenation Abu Dhabi.
Imagenation is targeting an output of eight films a year for the next five years, aiming to make Abu Dhabi “one of the world’s top producers of feature films and . . . a leading centre for content creation”.
Abu Dhabi has also established “The Circle”, a media, film finance and training summit that the city hopes will help budding Middle East directors and writers make international contacts but produce indigenous films – rather than the western blockbusters favoured by many young Gulf Arabs.
While Abu Dhabi has focused more on large Hollywood studio deals, Dubai’s festival, while still the most international such event in the Gulf, has increasingly repositioned itself as an Arab film festival, says Ms Carver.
Dubai has recently set up a separate festival for local talent, the Gulf Film Festival, which will run for the second time this April.
“The festival provides filmmakers with an opportunity to receive recognition for outstanding work, and encourage production of films in the region,” says Masoud Amralla Al Ali, an Emirati, who manages the main festival. “There is a nascent pan-Arab cinema, and the quality and scope of the films we received for our inaugural edition proved that.”
Some critics have said Dubai and Abu Dhabi are merely splashing petrodollars out in an attempt to buy cultural credibility and international attention.
Yet insiders say that the film festivals are just one part of a larger strategy to make the Gulf states a more attractive proposition to international expatriates, many of whom will not move merely for the promise of year-long sunshine and sandy beaches.
However, Abu Dhabi and Dubai’s embryonic festivals and cinema industries are still small players compared to other events in Egypt, Lebanon and Iran in particular. International media may have flocked to the UAE’s festivals – attracting welcome attention abroad – but local media and advertisers are indifferent, admits Ms Al Ruwaini.
Kind regards,
Nilgun Birgoren
- 20 Feb 2009, 12:00 am
